


Just Another Goddamn Day

by defeatedbyabridge



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defeatedbyabridge/pseuds/defeatedbyabridge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy protects his friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Another Goddamn Day

McCoy ducked an arrow, hurled himself sideways to evade a rifle butt, and found himself yanked into an alcove in the rocky cliff face. Spock let go of his arm and shoved him at Kirk's unmoving body, then started picking off their assailants one by one with careful phaser shots. 

"Oh, crap," McCoy muttered as he dropped to his knees, tricorder out and scanning before he had really taken in what was in front of him; Jim Kirk with yet another serious injury. This time it was an arrow to the belly, plus a nasty bruise on the temple. 

McCoy spared a thought to hope that Jim had been knocked out by the head wound before getting the gut wound as he jammed a capsule of painkilling doxilimine into his hypospray and rammed it home in Kirk's shoulder. His vitals stabilised, a little, but the arrow had perforated the lower intestine and he was in shock.

"How is he?" Spock shouted. 

"Greener than you'd be on the Titanic!" McCoy yelled back, as he made hasty, jagged cuts with his surgical scissors to get Kirk's shirt free of his stomach. He winced as he had to peel one blood-soaked piece away. "Not good -- I'll have to operate."

His breath hissed between his teeth as he saw the full extent of the damage. A tricorder readout was one thing; actually seeing the head of an arrow, a great big germ-ridden stone head of an arrow, inside his best friend's gut was quite another. Another arrow whizzed overhead, making him duck reflexively. 

"Why did they attack us?" McCoy yelled. 

"I am unsure," Spock dropped under a rifle shot and delivered a stunning, gravity-defying kick to a young man whose battlescream was abruptly cut off as his head jolted back. He fell limply to the ground. McCoy was vaguely aware that he was probably still breathing, as Spock was incredibly precise about these things, but just now he didn't care anyway. 

"I told him to be careful," McCoy grumbled as he got everything ready, the best he could, to try to remove the arrow. He laid out the tools he needed on a sterile cloth, which of course instantly became non-sterile, as soon it was hit by all the dust kicked up from all the fighting. "I told him Mantoth couldn't be trusted! But did he listen to me? No. He never listens to me because I'm just a good old country doctor and he's a BIG MAN captaining a starship! Well, it's not the good old country doctor in trouble this time, is it! No, it's the big strong brave idiotic-risk-taking captain man!" 

There was a whump as something else hit the ground. 

Spock. With an enormous bruise beginning to darken his cheekbone. 

"Awww, HELL!" McCoy shouted. He scooted over to Spock's side on all fours, checked him quickly, then reached a hand out of the tiny alcove and grabbed the arm of the nearest Starfleeter. One of the newer girls, in a yellow minidress. She looked scared out of her brain but she was also steady on her feet and her phaser aim was impeccable. 

"This way!" McCoy shouted, pulling her back. One person wouldn't be missed from the battle -- he hoped -- and this was one of those times when he was damn well pulling medical rank anyway. 

"Doctor McCoy!" she exclaimed, then she saw Spock and Kirk. She swallowed, hard. "What do you need me to do, sir?"

"Protect us," he said, with a dark grin. "Stand there and don't get hit, okay?" 

"Got it." 

The beamup came about five minutes later. It felt more like about as long as that one horrible hour when he'd been trapped in a turbolift with Spock

* * *

Back at sickbay…

Jim gasped, and tried to sit up. McCoy was by his side in an instant, with an arm around his shoulders, gently helping him to sit and ride out the dizziness. He knew his patient far too well to expect to be able to make him lie down. "What happened?" Jim croaked after a while. 

McCoy grinned. "Mantoth betrayed us. AS I PREDICTED."

THIS made Jim lie back down. "Oh, no," he groaned. McCoy could see the beginnings of an answering smile on his face. 

"It was a trap. There's no dilithium mine. There was a fight. We got out of it with a few injuries, but no casualties." McCoy savoured the sound of the last words. "You were one of the worst. Arrow to the gut, and a head wound." 

"No casualties thanks to you, I imagine," Jim said weakly. 

"Yeah, and Ensign Renn. She took over guard duties when Spock started snoring."

"So you had to look after both of us? Good work, Bones. Even if it means you'll be smug for a week." 

"I do NOT get smug!" McCoy said in mock outrage. "I'm never smug! How dare you, Captain!"

"Exactly," Spock said from the opposite bed in his driest tones. "He is not smug, Captain. I believe the word that would describe him more aptly is 'superior'. Perhaps even 'self-righteous'." 

"I'm allowed to be self-righteous when my self is right," McCoy said happily. "It's all over now, anyway. And perhaps you two will LISTEN to me next time!"


End file.
